Just Breathe
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: Eventually, everyone has to meet the parents. A patently ridiculous one shot, for which I heartily apologize.


**A/N: Apologies for the completely ridiculous nature of this one-shot. I was trying to think of a good scenario to write for a friend (Hi PJ!) and, well, this is as close as it came. Not very.**

**Just Breathe**

He smoothed a hand over his thick brown hair, then brought his fingers in front of his face and eyed them. Reasonably free of grease; alright. That would work. That would have to work. He rubbed his hand on the leg of his pants; okay, so, a bit greasier than he though, and he was now slightly slimy. It was alright. It would just have to be alright.

Bending over, he shook his head frantically, and his hair sprang back from its smoothed-down-ness and into its natural shape— he liked to think of it as "effervescent waves" but he wouldn't have dared tell anyone that. Effervescent waves of chestnut brown. Wonderful. Leia liked to run her hand through it, and get her hand tangled, and pull large clumps of it out, and gripe at him for forgetting to brush his hair again. He grinned sharply, crookedly, and walked down the ramp into the space station.

Guards? He looked side to side. Check. Check. Three of 'em, looking straight at him, and undoubtedly admiring the fullness of his hair. All as it should be. He tossed a hand behind his back and yanked the blaster out of the waistband of his pants, wincing slightly as the elastic snapped back on sensitive skin. He easily turned the wince into a cocky grin.

The guard's voice, metallic and grating. "Do you have clearance to—"

Three shots. Simple. Stunner blasts, Leia was always getting on to him for killing people at random, which he thought was kind of fun, and also meant you didn't have to worry so much about them coming after you for revenge, as corpses didn't do that, much, but Leia would complain if he actually killed anyone on this trip and then he'd have to do the dishes for a week, so he stunned them instead.

"I do now," he told the prone bodies, and after a minute of fumbling managed to get the blaster back into his pants. Grateful for the familiar weight of it back there, he strode on, stepping purposefully over the bodies in front of him.

Man on a mission; nobody had better get in his way.

Dead serious about that.

He had a stunner.

He'd forgotten to blow the heat off the gun before he put it back into the waistband, and he yelped a little as the smell of scorched flesh drifted up to his well-defined nostrils. No matter. What was one more scar to the mercenary king of the galaxy?

It hurt, though.

He shook it off. One more scar. No big deal. Hurt less than a tattoo. Speaking of which, there was an idea for a wedding present— get Leia's name tattooed on him somewhere. Would she like that? She had to like that. Women liked that kind of thing, didn't they? She'd like it, she'd be so happy. Maybe he could get it to cover up the burn.

A handful of guards at the third door he went through, though he'd been stepping carefully to try and avoid that. Man on a mission, yes, don't get in his way, yes, but there was only him, and meanwhile he was infiltrating an entire enemy space station full of guards armed to the teeth, and worst of all, with no Leia to yell at them if they killed anyone. Guards are thorough, he reminded himself; they don't do stun.

A tiny nagging voice at the back of his mind reminded him that he'd been like that at one time— thorough— a real man. He told it angrily to shut up. That's what happened when you got engaged. All that real-man stuff drifted aimlessly away, to be replaced with foot rubs and taking out the garbage, and if you got things really right then maybe sometimes it wasn't _you_ giving the foot rub. And was it worth it?

He had no idea.

Was it worth being here?

Same. Completely clueless. He sighed and shook his head and stunned the guards very quickly, because they were impatient fellows and didn't wait for bridegroom introspection, unless it meant that they were going to be invited to some sort of party. Then he walked on, slipping slightly on the hard shiny floor; grease on his boots, then. Maybe he should have taken a shower or something. And these clothes; were work clothes acceptable in this kind of situation? Was he violating some sort of etiquette? Should he have shaved, cut his hair, trimmed his nails, put on deodorant?

Actually, the grease gave rise to an interesting idea. All he needed was a run up, and he was sliding down the hall with his arms in the air to give him balance, throwing a silent cheer. The guards in the rooms with open doorways would have been surprised to see a man in greasy pants and flak jacket hurtling past without running, and if they were the right sort of people, they might have given a whoop and joined in. He doubted it, though. You rarely got the right sort of people on enemy space stations. They never passed the physical, for one thing, and they were probably too busy off somewhere watching reruns of Baywatch and drinking beer, for another.

He didn't suppose that his future father in law was much for watching reruns of Baywatch and drinking beer, which was a shame, because that was one of his favorite past times and he would have liked someone to share it with. Male bonding rituals, all that. He'd mentioned this to Leia just after a foot rub and she'd grinned at him and said, "Shall I get the handcuffs then?" He'd had to clarify that he said male bond_ing_, not bond_age_, but after a minute or two, changed his mind.

He'd also asked her if their marriage made him a prince.

She hadn't been able to stop laughing long enough to actually give him an answer.

Ah. Here he was.

He'd infiltrated his way deep into the heart of the space station, which was the cliche-approved place to find what he was looking for. They couldn't give Vader a room with a view, oh no. They had to conceal him, like he was some sort of— evil— thingie or something— frowning thoughtfully, he reckoned that his comparisons could use a bit of work. Not the time for it now, though, no, not now.

He paused at the door. Should he knock?

The sound of blasters behind him, most definitely not set on stun. No knocking, then. He kicked at the door, yelped, identified it as steel, thumbed his blaster past the _stun_ setting and onto _obliterate_, and limped into the room.

For a split second he thought someone was breathing through a scuba mask.

Then he realized that, no, it was Darth Vader. Darth Vader was here. Somewhere. He squinted into the darkness. Somewhere— but where?

With a sudden dawning of horror, he realized that Vader was nowhere in evidence and that, indeed, someone was breathing through a scuba mask.

With a sudden dawning of realism, he realized that the scuba mask thing was patently ridiculous and therefore Vader must be here somewhere. Somewhere.

A rush of confusion later and he realized that he had absolutely no clue what was going on. Where was Vader? Or, alternately, the scuba mask person? Who was breathing in that stertorous way? Who'd decorated this place, they clearly didn't know their bum from their elbow?

He cleared his throat.

"Er— Vader?" It was on the tip of his tongue to say _Reach for the sky, scuba mask breathing vermin_, but he fought off the urge.

There was a pause, and then that deep dark voice said, irritably and a bit guiltily, "What do you want?"

"Er— its— its Han Solo, sir." He bit his tongue. Sir? Where had that come from? He hadn't called anyone sir since— well, he'd never actually called anyone sir, except Leia once, when she was being particularly assertive. He certainly hadn't done it again.

"Oh," said the voice of the mysteriously hidden from view Darth Vader. "Oh. Give me a minute."

"—alright. Sir."

There was the very uncomfortable sound of a zipper being zipped— presumably— and then the equally uncomfortable sound of a toilet being flushed— presumably, though if the scuba mask was involved after all he didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about it at all, really, he didn't want to think about any of it. He got an attack of the nervous giggles. He really shouldn't be here. This was fantastically stupid, when it came right down to it. All Leia's fault, it was her idea.

His purpose for being there came out in a rush.

He hurried through it. "I didn't mean to disturb you, its just Leia insisted that I— well, more suggested— oh, who am I kidding, she insisted I get permission, see, its just we were planning on maybe being married maybe next month and I was thinking, well, her mother is, well, you know, you would know, and Luke refuses to speak to me since I stole his pants and I just, well, permission is permission, sir, and I thought I should ask."

There was a long pause, and then the door to the bathroom, cunningly concealed in the wall, creaked very slowly open.

A helmet was stuck out.

"I beg your pardon?" said Vader, in a roar, albeit a bewildered one.

"Permission to marry your daughter, sir!" bellowed Solo.

Vader stared at him. And breathed.

"I would assume you are joking, Solo."

"No, sir, don't have that much of a sense of humor, sir!"

"I would assume you are joking, Solo, and the reason I would assume you are joking is that there is no possible way that any halfwit mechanic would think I would ever give permission that he might take my daughter unto him as a wife."

Solo blinked. He should have changed his clothes. He knew he should have changed his clothes. He tried to have a staring contest with Vader but failed miserably on account of not really being able to figure out where his eyes were. He swallowed.

"Right, sir," he said stiffly, turned around and marched out. Well, he'd tried. He would tell Leia that; at least he'd tried. Couldn't do any more than try, now, could he? He stunned his way back to his ship, miserable and preoccupied. There were only a few guards on the way; at least, only a few that seemed interested in stopping him. The rest were sliding up and down the hallway.

One last one stood between him and the Falcon. Solo eyed him with a sigh, and reached for his blaster. As he pulled it out he realized that he'd done so one too many times that day, and felt the elastic give way.

The guard was very amused. Solo felt entirely justified by switching the blaster to the kill setting, just this once.

Behind him, far behind him, in the very heart of the space station, because that's the only thing that's cliche-approved, Vader had settled back in his chair and was ruminating.

"What do you think?" he said finally to Mare, who perched on the arm of his seat and petted the surface of his helmet, cooing about how shiny it was. "Was I too hard on him?"

"Nonsense," said Mare, skating her fingers about on his cape. "He's only a pantsless mechanic. Do you mind if I— resume what it was I was doing?"

Vader let out a heartfelt sigh. "If you really must."

"Will you call me Darth Mare?"

"No, I will not."

She flashed him a grin anyway, kissed his shoulder, and pulled the scuba mask out of nowhere.


End file.
